What To Grab in an Earthquake

I’ve experienced ground-shaking sadness and frustration in recent months. Some of it, yes, was due to my own vain imaginations, anxieties, and insecurities. But sometimes the ground on which I had so solidly stood before shook beneath me with startling fury because somebody or something completely moved everything that had once stood firm.

I’ve had a jolt or two. Solid ground moved. Where once there was a “permanent” fixture, now there was a makeshift hut. Where once I thought I’d stood on an unmoveable boulder, now I found myself on shifting sand.

Have you experienced a similar shift in your “normal”? Do you remember a yesterday when your present struggle wasn’t even on your radar, and you wonder how can you get back to that day, and you realize you can’t?

Do you remember the day before that first pain? The week before the doctor’s visit? The family gathering before your loved one passed? The plans you had made before they all got changed? The tune you were humming before that phone call?

And then everything changed. 

And at the time, when everything seemed to either be in slow motion or sonic speed, you didn’t really know what was happening. But when you look back on those moments or hours or days…you can almost feel the earth beneath your feet shift…and you can almost hear the mountains in the distance crumble into the sea…because something really big just changed.

I know those feelings. And they can make you feel desperate. When the ground beneath my feet shifts, my natural tendency is to grab hold. 

But most often the things I grab hold of are shifting too. And I find them going down with me rather than holding me up.

But there is one very solid thing we can grab hold of when the earth begins to tremble.

Grab hold of God’s unfailing love. It is solid and it can hold you upright when everything in you and everything around you is dragging you down.

I think one of the toughest things about any personal struggle we face is that it always involves a pretty huge change. Whether it’s permanent or temporary, it feels as though things will never be normal again. We’ll never be able to breathe quite right again. We’ll never feel safe again. We’ll never love again. We’ll never sleep well again. We’ll never be happy again. It feels as though nothing is the same and nothing will ever be quite right again.

But, according to 1 Peter 5:10, God, in His unchanging and unfailing love, will indeed

• settle you
• reestablish you
• strengthen you
• make you perfect

Has your personal struggle included earthquake-like changes, surprises or emotions? Grab hold of God’s unfailing, unchanging love. His love is big and powerful and encompassing and real. And He will love you…every stinking day!